Questions regarding the rtl8180 driver (compared to zd1211rw driver)

Questions regarding the rtl8180 driver (compared to zd1211rw driver)

[Henning Habighorst]

Hi

I've tried to use the rtl8180 driver some time, but as it crashed
longer time ago more than often and I didn't get a successful
connection (only after a reboot) and the connection wasn't very
stable, I switched to the zd1211rw driver, which is much faster.

I notice a total different behaviour between those two drivers : With
the rtl8180 driver, I have a very weak signal level (usually around 20
%) and the bit rate and TX Power seems hard coded to me (I'm a very
basic developer... I've got really no clue what you guys are doing!)
The link quality is not shown too.

If I'm using zd1211rw it's totally different : The signal level is
changing... It has no "usual" level, but on traffic the signal level
gets higher ( What it should be like ... I guess?!) And the bit rate
is changing too (what makes sense in my opinion when signal level is
changing)...

As I am not sure what information you'll need or if this is a "known"
problem I would be happy for an answer, if I could help and if , how
;)

Henning

--> using latest compat-wireless Tarball (2.8-16-gec1eb52) and Linux
2.6.24 on an AMD 64 X2 Windsor CPU....

( Output of iwconfig :

RTL8180 :
wlan1     IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:"BlackIce"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.437 GHz  Access Point: 00:13:49:B9:25:30
          Bit Rate=48 Mb/s   Tx-Power=27 dBm
          Retry min limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr=2352 B
          Encryption
key:------------------------------------------------------------
          Link Signal level=13/65
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

ZD1211RW (no traffic)
wlan0     IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:"BlackIce"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.437 GHz  Access Point: 00:13:49:B9:25:30
          Bit Rate=5.5 Mb/s   Tx-Power=0 dBm
          Retry min limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr=2352 B
          Encryption key:
-----------------------------------------------------------
          Link Quality=100/100  Signal level=30/100
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

ZD1211RW (some traffic)
wlan0     IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:"BlackIce"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.437 GHz  Access Point: 00:13:49:B9:25:30
          Bit Rate=24 Mb/s   Tx-Power=0 dBm
          Retry min limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr=2352 B
          Encryption
key:---------------------------------------------------------------
          Link Quality=100/100  Signal level=32/100
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0
)

Output of lsusb/  lspci :
Bus 002 Device 004: ID 0ace:1215 ZyDAS WLA-54L WiFi
01:01.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8185
IEEE 802.11a/b/g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 20)

Re: Questions regarding the rtl8180 driver (compared to zd1211rw driver)

[John W. Linville]

On Sat, Jan 26, 2008 at 12:35:56PM +0100, Henning Habighorst wrote:

> As I am not sure what information you'll need or if this is a "known"
> problem I would be happy for an answer, if I could help and if , how
> ;)

Henning,

Thanks for the email and your interest.  However, I'm not really sure
what you are asking or reporting. :-)

I think it would be better if you were to focus on specific problems
with individual drivers.  You probably want to confine those problem
reports to individual messages rather than putting all of them into
a single message.

Thanks for your participation!

John
-- 
John W. Linville
linville@tuxdriver.com